1. The petitioners 21 in number in Writ Petition No. 32369 of 1993 and the petitioners 8 in number in Writ Petition No. 36910 of 1993 filed the above writ petitions on a common ground for issue of a writ of mandamus directing the second respondent-Land Tribunal, Sidlaghatta Taluk, Kolar District to dispose of Form No. 11 filed by respondents pending before the said tribunal and issue of a direction to distribute the lands in accordance with Section 77 of the Karnataka Land Reforms Act (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Act’) after finding the surplus lands. Another prayer sought for by them is to prevent the respondents 5 to 8 to cut and remove the eucalyptus trees standing in the lands in question.
2. In Writ Petition No. 32345 of 1993 the petitioner described himself as a rival tenant in respect of the lands in question and his prayer is to issue a direction to the Land Tribunal to recall its order, dated 13-11-1992 under which the Land Tribunal conferred occupancy rights in favour of respondents 5 to 8 and to give further direction to club the application filed by the petitioner along with the applications of respondents 5 to 8 and then decide the case in accordance with law. Though these petitions are filed separately on 9-9-1993 and 26-9-1993 there is absolutely no doubt in the mind of this Court that the petitioners have resorted to file these petitions invoking the jurisdiction of this Court under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution after a final order was passed by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in SLAP No. 13272 of 1993 on 3-9-1993 bringing an end to the dispute that was existing between the inamdar and the tenants in question. However, the contesting respondents are shown giving different serial numbers from one petition to another and therefore, whenever these contesting respondents are referred, it will be in the serial numbers shown in Writ Petition No. 32369 of 1993.
3. The land owner Sri J.B Srinivasa Rao who is arrayed as fourth respondent in Writ Petition Nos. 32369 and 36910 of 1993 will be hereinafter referred to as ‘owner’; though his Sl. No. as respondent changes in the other writ petition.
4. The contentions raised by the petitioners in the two writ petitions referred to above are that they are the residents of K.G Pura, Kulme Hosur and Cheemangala and they are interested persons in claiming the relief to the excess land that would be found, after the tribunal considers both Form No. 7 and Form No. 11 filed by the tenants and therefore, they have got locus standi to maintain the petitions. They have taken substantial pain and precaution to see that the public cause shall not be defeated by bureaucrats and therefore, they have attempted to place the materials before this Court to analyse the matter in question and pass suitable orders as contended in their petitions.
5. The petitioner in Writ Petition No. 32345 of 1993 has, however, gave up his right to be a person interested as one of the party to the distribution of excess lands by the authorities under Section 77 of the Act. His contention is to give a direction to the Land Tribunal to consider his application for conferring occupancy rights.
6. The earlier writ petitions are described as Public Interest Litigations (hereinafter referred to ‘PIL’) in quest of justice.
7. The lands in question for which occupancy rights claimed by the tenants are Sy. Nos. 7, 8, 9, 10, 15, 16 and 17 of Kulme Hosur Village, Jangama Kote Hobli, Sidlaghatta Taluk. The total measurement of the land comprised in these survey numbers are 45 acres 14 guntas. The original applicants in Form No. 7 are Narayanappa, the father of the fifth respondent N. Krishnappa, and the sixth respondent Sonnappa as also the seventh respondent C. Krishnappa. They have claimed ⅓rd rights in respect of the total extent of the lands comprised in these survey numbers. They have also declared the lands held by them in Form No. 7 declaring thereon that their right over these lands again confined to ⅓rd share. The contention of the petitioners is that the lands declared by these tenants are exceeding the ceiling limit fixed under Section 66 of the Act and the tribunal without going into the question of determining the ceiling of the lands held by them in their individual capacity decided Form No. 7 by its order, dated 13-11-1992. Therefore, it is a clear case of fraud committed by the authorities concerned, who, without deciding Form No. 11 have conferred occupancy rights to the lands claimed by them and therefore a writ of mandamus is necessary for the tribunal to decide Form No. 11 immediately. The second limb of their contention is that in the vast extent of lands, they have grown eucalyptus trees, as these lands are being unattended earlier and therefore, they are interested persons to get their usufructs along with the excess lands. On these grounds, these petitioners have obtained an interim order restraining the tenants from cutting and removing these trees.
8. The petitioner in Writ Petition No. 32345 of 1993, Muniyappa, made a grievance that the Land Tribunal failed to take up his application along with the applications filed by the tenants in Form No. 7 and therefore, the impugned order dated 13-11-1992 is required to be recalled and to decide afresh after clubbing his application.
9. Before taking up the general cause of the petitioners in all these writ petitions the question of non-considering Form No. 7 filed by Muniyappa required as a preliminary point as the conclusion on this point in favour of the petitioners will obviously result in succeeding of the other two petitions because the Land Tribunal then required to decide Form No. 7 and Form No. 11.
10. Sri Gopala Gowda, the learned Advocate for the petitioner Muniyappa, relied on Annexure-A annexed to the writ petition to substantiate his case that the Land Tribunal failed to consider the application filed by the said Muniyappa. Annexure-A appears to be an endorsement dated 5-1-1981 acknowledging the receipt of tenants application of the petitioner in respect of survey numbers adverted to above.
11. We have short of material to appreciate the stand taken by this petitioner as except this endorsement, which according to the tenants, is a get up document, there is no other materials placed in support of his contention. This petitioner is an equally interested person to get occupancy right in respect of the lands cultivated by him, has not produced any scrap of papers or material as to what action he has taken against the Land Tribunal for its inaction to decide his application. The back-ground of this dispute will make any body to think that a tenant who wanted to establish his legal right over agricultural lands which is the main source of his livelihood will sleep over the matter for such length of period. Therefore, the contention of the learned Advocate for the tenants that there was no Form No. 7 presented by the said petitioner and therefore there is no question of the Land Tribunal to consider an application which is not in existence. It is also to be noted that the extended date for filing Form No. 7 under the Act has come to an end on 31-6-1979 and does not extend at all. In the event, the petitioner claims that he has filed Form No. 7 on 10-12-1980 as disclosed in Annexure-A, then it is barred by limitation and therefore, there is no question of the tribunal to consider such an application.
12. In Basavegowda v. Land Tribunal . AIR 1978 Kant. 42., a Division Bench of this Court has expressed the view that when a law prescribes period of limitation for an action, such an action has to be brought within the prescribed period. The court or tribunal has no jurisdiction to entertain an action or proceedings after the expiry of the period of limitation prescribed. Conversly, if a discretion is vested with the court or tribunal to condone the delay for showing sufficient cause after only such condonation the application has to be admitted for taking further action.
13. There is no scope for condoning delay to the applications filed beyond the prescribed period of limitation and therefore, no question would arise now for the tribunal to consider a belated plea of the petitioner to annul the order lawfully made. The petitioner also not produced any document in support of his claim such as record of rights, tax-paid receipt or any bills evidencing the sale of produce grown in the lands in his occupation. The petitioner has taken a course which is unknown to law as in his petition, he has sidelined his main prayer which is for considering his application for conferring occupancy rights after recalling the order of the tribunal, dated 13-11-1992 by traversing the various action committed by the tenants to the detriment of the petitioner and some other persons and therefore, I have no hesitation to hold that this petition is speculative in nature and the same is filed with a sole motive to frustrate the order passed by a Division Bench of this Court in Writ Petition No. 34924 of 1992, DD: 30-7-1993 filed by the land owner J.S Srinivasa Rao who was unsuccessful even before the Supreme Court of India in SCLAP No. 13272 of 1993.
14. The entire land which is the subject-matter of Form No. 7 and Form No. 11 was a jodi inam land and the erstwhile Jodidar was the father of Sreenivasa Rao. The predecessors-in-title of the tenants 5 to 7 have entered into a lease deed dated 24-8-1936 with G. Subba Rao, the father of Sreenivasa Rao to the lands extending nearly 100 acres. The agreement was that he would plant fruit bearing and other trees and give half of the yield thereof at the initial stage and ⅓rd share after 10 years time. This Jodi Kulme Hosur vested in the State of Karnataka on 1-11-1959 and a notification was issued by the State Government under Section 1 of the Mysore (Personal and Miscellaneous) Inams Abolition Act. Consequent to vesting, the predecessors-in-title of these tenants presented claims to recognise the occupancy rights making jodidar as a party. After holding enquiry, the Special Deputy Commissioner in Case Nos. 3579 and 3581 of 1962 recognised Muniyappa, the predecessors-in-title of respondents-tenants as an ordinary tenant under Section 9-A and the Jodidar landowner under Section 9. In these proceedings Sy. No. 4/1 a dry land measuring 39 acres 31 guntas; Sy. No. 4/2 dry land measuring 72 acres 13 guntas and Sy. No. 3/5 dry land measuring 10 acres 28 guntas were registered in the name of the predecessors-in-title of the tenants. Sy. No. 4/1 was later the subject-matter of change of survey numbers which is the subject-matter of Form No. 7 filed by the tenants as it is declared as ordinary tenancy. Since the predecessors-in-title held as a kadim tenant in respect of other extent of lands they have vested in the joint family of the respondents 5 to 7 which they have declared as the lands owned by them on which they have ⅓rd share each.
15. Sri L.G Havanur, the learned Senior Advocate, Sri Jayakumar S. Patil and Sri Gopala Gowda, the learned Advocates representing the petitioners in all the three writ petitions, addressed arguments. Sri Havanur, the learned Senior Advocate raised the contention that the petitioners enjoy the locus standi to move this Court to interfere with the proceedings pending before the Land Tribunal as the Land Tribunal committed bias in not deciding Form No. 11 filed by Narayanappa, the father of the fifth respondent on 31-12-1974 which is resulted in tenants to enjoy the lands over the ceiling area and therefore, a direction is absolutely necessary for the tribunal to decide Form No. 11. The mathematical calculation was also resorted to show by the contesting parties as the one version showing the excess of land and another version showing well within the ceiling the tenants are enjoying.
16. The procedure for enquiry by the Land Tribunal on the application made under Section 45 is enumerated in Section 48-A of the Act. The sum and substance of this section is that on receipt of the application Form No. 7, it should be published in a public notice in the village calling upon the landlord and all other persons having interest to appear before the tribunal on a specified date shown in the notice and tribunal should also issue individual notices to the persons shown in the application. If no objection is filed after verification, the tribunal may accept or reject the application. If an objection is filed, it shall hold an enquiry and determine as to who is in the occupation. If there is no objection in respect of the claim, the tribunal can also proceed granting occupancy right.
17. Under Section 66 of the Act every person who holds on the date of commencement of the Amendment Act the lands shown in sub-sections (1) to (3) he shall file a declaration in the prescribed form within the prescribed period giving particulars of the lands held by him, his family members, lands tenanted. There is a provision to impose penalty for failure to furnish declaration. After due enquiry in respect of the holdings, the holder is expected to surrender the lands declared as an excess and after surrendering, these lands will be distributed in accordance with Section 77. Under Section 45(2) if a tenant holds land partly as owner and partly as tenant but the area of the land held by him as owner is equal to or exceeds a ceiling area he shall not be entitled to be registered as an occupant of the land held by him as a tenant before the date of vesting.
18. Therefore, the tribunal is duty bound to decide this question as under Rule 19 the Land Tribunal should verify if Form No. 11 is pending before considering the enquiry on Form No. 7.
19. In fact, the very same contention was taken before the learned Judges of the Division Bench by the fourth respondent-landowner. The Division Bench placing reliance on the decisions in Shri Dharmarayaswamy Temple v. Chinnathayappa* . 1990 4 Kar. L.J 351 DB and Muniyallappa v. B.M Krishnamurthy . 1992 Supp 3 SCC 26, held at para 6 thus:—
“The interest of the petitioner in contending whether the two cases, one arising under Section 67 and the other arising under Section 48-A of the Act should have been clubbed together or not, will not advance the case of the petitioner in any manner for in the present case the dispute in between the landowner on the one hand and the tenant on the other, while the declaration has been filed by the tenants and not by the landowner. If the tribunal had come to the conclusion that the said Narayanappa had lands in excess of the ceiling limit, registration of occupancy rights could not have been made in excess of the ceiling limit. Therefore, that contention is not of much significance in the present case.”
20. The petitioners in these two writ petitions will not have altogether a different status than the landowner except to the fact that if the Land Tribunal determines that the holding is in excess it will have the power to get these lands surrendered to distribute under Section 77 of the Act.
21. In Purandhar Lagama v. Land Tribunal, Raibag . 1978 2 Kar. L.J 339., on which the petitioners placed their reliance is a case where the locus standi of the petitioners who were not parties before the Land Tribunal where the tribunal conferred occupancy rights in favour of the claimants who were close relatives of one of the members of the tribunal was considered and the court accepted their locus standi in view of the contentions raised by them that if the occupancy rights were wrongly granted to the claimants violating Section 48-A, the said lands would have remained with the owners and if such owner owned excess to the ceiling limit, such excess of the land vested to the State Government which can be distributed under Section 77 of the Act.
22. In Janata Dal v. H.S Chowdhary . 1992 4 SCC 305, which is directly dealt with PIL. Their Lordships after considering all the leading cases on this subject held thus:—
“In a private notion, the litigation is bipolar, two opposed parties are looked in a confrontational controversy which pertains to the determination of the legal consequences of past events unlike in public action. In contrast, the strict rule of locus standi applicable to private litigation is relaxed in public interest litigation (PIL) and a broad rule is evolved which gives the right of locus standi to any member of the public acting bona fide and having sufficient interest in instituting an action for redressal of public wrong or public injury, but who is not a mere busy body or a meddlesome interloper; since the dominant object of PIL is to ensure observance of the provisions of the Constitution or the law which can be best achieved to advance the cause of community or disadvantaged groups and individuals or public interest by permitting any person, having no personal gain or private motivation or any other oblique consideration but acting bona fide and having sufficient interest in maintaining an action for judicial redress for public injury to put the judicial machinery in motion like actio popularis of Roman Law whereby any citizen could bring such an action in respect of a public delict, (paras 61 and 62).
Though in our country, a departure from the strict rule of locus standi as applicable to a person in private action is recognised in relation to PIL and it is broadened and liberalised the rule of standing and thereby permitted a member of the public, having no personal gain or oblique motive to approach the court for enforcement of the constitutional or legal rights of socially or economically disadvantaged persons who on account of their poverty or total ignorance of their fundamental rights are unable to enter the portals of the courts for judicial redress, yet no precise and inflexible working definition has been evolved in respect of locus standi of an individual seeking judicial remedy and various activities in the field of PIL. In defining the rule of locus standi no ‘rigid litmus test’ can be applied since the broad contours of PIL are still developing space seemingly with divergent views on several aspects of the concept of this newly developed law and discovered jurisdiction leading to a rapid transformation of judicial activism with a far-reaching change both in the nature and form of the judicial process.
(para 66).”
23. In Mr. S. Bangarappa v. Somappa* . ILR 1991 KAR 970 DB., a Division Bench of this Court held that non-dismissal of the claims would result in vesting the land under Section 44 which would have been availed for distribution under Section 77 considered as speculative in character.
24. A number of decisions are relied on by the learned Advocates to decide the question of locus standi, fraud and collusive proceedings before the Land Tribunal and the right of the petitioners to get the excess land under Section 77 of the Act. But, however, the learned Advocates for the petitioners who are claiming the benefit under Section 77 of the Act are unequivocally in their representation before this Court that the action of the tribunal, in not deciding Form No. 11 simultaneously along with Form No. 7 or earlier to the decision on Form No. 7 is the main grievance to file these writ petitions.
25. If we take the question of locus standi under PIL we cannot once for all brand the petitioners as interlopers, but it cannot be overlooked the fact that the petitioners either knowingly or unknowingly have filed the above writ petitions after a total failure on the part of the landowner to annul the order of the Land Tribunal and also to give a direction, to the Land Tribunal to decide Form No. 11. In a book ‘Public Interest Litigation — in quest of Justice’ by Author Dr. Sonia Hurra, First Edition, the learned Author dealt with the public interest litigation and its incidence and causes in detail. Dealing with locus standi in a representative social action in Chapter II, page 47, the learned Author expresses:
“Public interest litigation in India is viewed as a reform of the traditional model. It is an improvement on the American doctrine of ‘standing’ which revolves around two distinct issues, viz., (a) whether the petitioner is sufficiently motivated to present a good case to the court; and (b) whether there is an injury that requires judicial redress? The American law presumes that only some one with a personal stake can meet the first requirement of motivation.
However, the Indian Supreme Court has rejected this presumption by allowing any member of the public to seek judicial redress for a legal wrong caused to “a person or to a determinate class of persons, who…..by reason of poverty, helplessness or disability, or socially or economically disadvantaged position, is unable to approach the court directly. This modification of traditional doctrine of ‘locus standi’ can be termed “Representative Social Action” because here the petitioner is accorded ‘standing’ to sue as the representative of another person or group of persons.”
26. Having regard to these facts and circumstances, it is a futile exercise in considering all the contentions raised by the petitioners as the ultimate aim of the petitions is to direct the Land Tribunal to decide Form No. 11 with utmost speed and precaution to enable the State to take further action in the matter in the event of respondents 5 to 7 held to be in possession of excess land. In the result, the following order is made:—
Writ Petition Nos. 32369 of 1993 and 36910 of 1993 are partly allowed. A writ of mandamus is issued to the second respondent to dispose of Form No. 11 filed on 31-12-1974 by any of the respondents 5 to 7 or by their predecessors-in-title. Alternatively, if Form No. 11 filed by any one of the respondent is found to be inadequate to decide the holdings of the respondents 5 to 7 as declared in their Form No. 7 and also by obtaining additional materials with regard to any other holdings by them through the concerned authorities and decide within three months positively from the date of receipt of this order. Rule issued and made absolute.
27. Writ Petition No. 32345 of 1993 will not survive for any consideration and the same is hereby dismissed.
R. Ramakrishna, J. Dated 22-4-1994
ORDER ON AN APPLICATION FILED IN COURT IN W.P No. 32345 OF 1993
28. The petitioner in Writ Petition No. 32345 of 1993 has filed an application immediately after the pronouncement of the order for continuation of stay granted earlier restraining respondents 4 to 7 and the petitioner in this petition to cut and remove the eucalyptus trees standing in the lands in question.
29. This Court while disposing of this writ petition has given a categorical finding that the petitioner Muniyappa has filed the writ petition after the alleged landowner exhausted his remedy and also he having failed to produce the copy of Form No. 7 filed by him that his writ petition is devoid of merits. This Court also considered the fact that the alleged Form No. 7 was filed after the last date fixed for such purpose. Since this categorical finding is given, the petitioner is not entitled to make a representation to continue the stay granted in his favour earlier.
30. Hence, this application is dismissed.